Anticipation for Sucker Punch as a Popcultural Database Movie

Being swamped with a bit of university work at the end of the semester I (noticably) didn't have much time and muse for writing about movies and videogames on here.

Coincidentally I came across trailers for the new Zack Snyder movie Sucker Punch. Previously I had just seen teaser posters, snippets and stuff like that and couldn't help but scoff a little bit at the character designs. Babydoll? That isn't a person, she is a synthetic comic book character.

But finally watching the trailer it became apparent to me that this was no overworked design, this was not "too much", it was simply an artful expression and reflection of popular culture and the way we consume it today.

Every still frame of the trailer is a panel in a comic book. Every scenario in the movie is a videogame. Instead of products of popular culture being created in the image of real life, it is real life that we translate into scenarios and entries in the popcultural database.

My first action after watching the trailer was doing an amazon search for the comic book that Sucker Punch is based on. But my impression was confirmed in the fact that there is no single source material.

Sucker Punch is synthetically created out of our common database of popcultural elements. The first few moments we watch the trailer we begin to wonder "Is this the film adaption of one of the games that I played but forgot about?" It could very well be. But Sucker Punch is probably even more than that. It consciously references and plays with the age of database consumption that we are in now.

The title "Otaku: Japan's Database Animals" suggests that Azuma Hiroki was dealing with a distinctly Japanese phenomenon when he wrote about the shift in the way of consumption of popular culture that happened in the Otaku world roughly from the early 1990s until today and the underlying theoretical and philosophical reasons for it. But reading his text I found myself coming up with all kinds of details from the western world of popular culture as well that were conform with this theory.

Since the grand narrative of organised religion was declared dysfunctional, cults like Aum Shinrikyo could thrive and gain power. But in that context shouldn't it also be mentioned that it was no coincidence that the founder of Scientology was a science fiction writer? The decline of the grand narrative is of course also apparent in the western world and thus I think that the model of database consumption can be evidenced in western geek culture and Japanese otaku culture alike.

Hence we have movies like Sucker Punch coming out. Sucker Punch is not the first product that is consciously constructed this way. Tarantino has always been a filmmaker that made a lot of references and drew on a catalogue of settings, characters and plots that had in some way been established before and gave them his own twist. But Sucker Punch goes one step further. Sucker Punch does not explicitly reference works like Lady Snowblood, instead it uses the archetype of the girl wearing a Japanese school uniform. A girl wearing a Japanese school uniform and wielding a Katana.

So essentially archetypes, settings, plot structures and all these things have become entries in the popcultural database. While some creators tell stories in the supposedly traditional way, more and more creators become conscious of the popcultural database and start using the elements consciously and without shame. When copy and original have the same value there is no shame in being a "copycat".

I am very much looking forward to the movie and while I think it might be a little bit silly in itself its construction is extremely interesting and might even change the way people look at movies just a tiny bit.

Game of Thrones Preview (Two Months to go!)

Slightly more than 60 days from its premiere, not so much new can be said about the upcoming adaption of A Game of Thrones from HBO. I'm still very excited about seeing it all come to life and each new picture that we get, each new trailer and glimpse that we catch from the series seems rather promising.

I still believe that a TV series created by HBO must be the best fitting format to the complex stories of intrigue and dozens of characters that make their appearance over the different books. I remember, even when years ago there was no word about an adaption at all, if there were discussions on the matter, an HBO produced series was always the format mentioned as best fitting for the source material. Thus, it's really quite surprising that after five or so years I find myself here, barely two months from the pilot episode to what might be a great adaption of my once favourite books.

I say "once" here because I first read the books in the final years of high school and back then I was completely fascinated with everything. If I read them today, I don't know if I would be quite as amazed. But fact remains, those are really captivating stories and whomever I recommended the books to before always received them very well. So yes, go ahead and read them, they're good books. But maybe be a bit wary because in all the excitement before the airing of the new series I always read things like "best book series ever" and such, which might just not be true for everyone. It's quite different from your usual fantasy book series but there is one thing that A Song of Ice and Fire is extremely good at conveying, one thing that I always remember when I think back to it: The vulnerability of people who have to make their life in an unstable country that is plagued by war, looting and general desolation. If you are just walking down a street, trying to make your way from one village to another you might be murdered just for the clothes on your back or shoes you happen to be wearing. A lot of fantasy stories deal with the fantastical (hence the name) but one thing that A Song of Ice and Fire was good at making you aware of was that danger even lies in the common highway man and not necessarily fantastical beasts.

Another thing I remember is hating a character very much through the first two books and then, when he got his own point of view chapters in the next books, him becoming one of my favourite characters. It might be a little bit cliché but it really isn't an easy feat to pull off. A Song of Ice and Fire keeps surprising you in the strangest ways and that's what makes it worthwhile.

Remains to be seen if the series will be able to do the same for us! As mentioned before, a TV series seems to be the best format for the storytelling because even in the book the story heavily relied on cliffhangers. George R. R. Martin used to write for TV and maybe this is one of the cases where it really shows. Thus, the storytelling of Game of Thrones should offer great potential for a TV adaption of any kind. The richness of the story, filled with great castles, wonderful country sides, a small dash of supernatural beings and exquisite clothes of manifold styles beg for a big budget like HBO might be able to offer. And as far as we can see in the teasers and high resolution stills everything looks very real, refined and beautifully crafted.

Now, of course there have also been some things that I started wondering about. First there is the issue of the book series, and thus the storyline, not being finished and Martin taking his fair time to finish the remaining books to say the least. But with adaptions like True Blood we can see that HBO does take liberties with the source material. While I hope that for the books that were finished they stick as close to the story as the format allows them to (minor adaptions still welcome of course), it might come in handy once they reach territory where no storyline exists yet. This might prove to be a double edged sword and we can only wonder how HBO will handle this. Fact remains, for the first season we have a perfectly crafted storyline that they can follow and even have some minor plots be resolved in the progress of the first season. Well yes, I am not kidding you. There are a lot of loose threads still hanging as of book four and the plots that have been resolved are actually in the minority, which at times is a reason for people to discourage others from even starting to read the books, because that level of unresolved business does feel kind of unsatisfying at times.

Then there is also the objection that the whole project is doomed to fail as it is, since production alone, even if all other things are settled, will take too long for the child actors to still look appropriate for their roles. I am not sure what to think about this, since another big and long filming project springs to mind, being the Harry Potter series. I think they pulled it off satisfyingly enough and since they seem to have aged up the children of A Game of Thrones at least a bit for the adaption it might just work out. Another question of course is the budget and whether HBO and all the actors involved are willing to make such long-term committments. This depends largely on the success of the first season I would guess, so it all remains to be seen. We can speculate on it right now but until at least the pilot airs and ratings are announced it's a bit hard to say anything solid on those matters.

A very personal concern of mine is one character and that is the Hound, Sandor Clegane. To be fair, I have never seen Rory McCann in any other role than the one he played in Hot Fuzz and I doubt that role is in any way representative of his acting style, since it's very much a comedy role with not very many lines at all. One thing that caught my eye (or rather didn't) in previous trailers was that Sandor Clegane didn't have such a noticably burnt face. Granted, I have not seen really high resolution pictures of it before, I have not seen his face in motion and the little glimpses that I caught of him were too short and small to really tell anything. But yet, I hope they did well on his face. Big defining scars always require great make-up and I really hope they do his face justice and not play down his disfigurement, as it happened in the movie adaption of Avatar the Last Airbender. To both Zuko and Sandor the scars are as deep as they are meaningful and they should be visible on their faces. But of course there is more to Sandor's character than just his scars. I guess in the first season we might not see a whole lot of him but yet I hope that in the key moments that are crucial to his character development they will not forget about him and give him a chance to shine and foreshadow his importance. Thus one of the scenes that I'm looking forward to the most is the Tourney of the Hand.

What I have seen so far of Petyr Baelish is amazing! He looks very much like I imagined him and it seems that even though he comes across as a minor character in the first few books, they have not forgotten his importance and give him enough of a presence on the screen so he might get the viewer's attention and maybe even occasionally steal the show. As far as the child actors go, I think they all look great and very appropriate but how they are doing on screen is one of the things that remains to be seen. Especially Maisie Williams who plays Arya has caught my eye. Maybe HBO played off a bit of the fact that Arya is a big fan favourite and released a lot of images of her already, but she looks great and in-character in all of those stills and I am also looking forward to see her on screen. In closing I can say about the cast that I very much hope we will grow to love a lot of different characters, especially played by actors that haven't gotten a chance to really shine before and that HBO will not put too much emphasis on Sean Bean alone as a drawing card for the TV series. I especially count on Peter Dinklage as Tyrion to become a fan favourite, just like his character in the books.

On the one hand, I can not believe that after all these years of waiting we are finally barely two months away from the premiere of the series but on the other hand more than 60 days do seem like a long time. But winter is coming after all, it is only a matter of time. Waiting is at least one of the things that we fans are really good at!

RIFT: First Impressions

One of the nicer things I brought home from Gamescom last year was a RIFT beta key. I registered quickly but it took a long time until I heard back from them, so I thought they had forgotten me after all. Some time ago however, I finally received the actual beta invitation and could try out the game.

It is a bit difficult to say anything about this game when I'm not really a player of MMOs at all. The last MMO I played? Ragnarök Online! I never played any MMO of the 3d kind, so navigating my character and especially selecting the enemies was challenging at first. I really liked the way the characters looked. They all had such broad hips and broad shoulders, at first it really threw me off but then I grew to like it. Until I took a screenshot and looked at it outside of the game. Turns out: My resolution ingame was a bit stretched and made everything look broader than it was. But strangely, I found this deviation from tall and slender characters, especially females, really refreshing! Oh well!

The gameplay was fun enough; even questing takes a rather intuitive route and you never really feel forced to do anything, which lets you play on and on for hours, obviously. What really impressed me was the wealth of different combination possibilities for your character's skilltrees. I can't even begin to think up which combinations I'd still want to try. So if you start a new character, you never feel like you are "stuck with them", because once you get bored you can choose new ways to skill your character and play them entirely differently! Lots of fun.

The implementation of rifts that suddenly open in the countryside is well thought out and carried out in a very atmospheric way as well. The countryside itself looks really nice, too. I still prefer Oblivion's graphics but that was a single player game. Imagine a near Oblivion-pretty world in an MMO game, that's really something!

Now onto the bad sides I guess, but those aren't really the games' fault at all. It's the players. Granted, you can turn a page in the chat or turn it off altogether but if you are looking for a group you can't help but have to endure the conversations of people ingame. My server was mostly filled with players that constantly talked about World of Warcraft and compared the two games. There is something about the random chatter of MMO people that annoys me. The tone of the conversation is always derogatory, it all serves the single objective to compare e-peens and it seems like people are always looking for fights.

I also realised that people like me probably aren't the target group of the game at all. I at least know my fair share of MMO terminology and thus I can fufill basic group functions but most of these people seemed to be permanent MMO players for whom this was just a different software to carry out their standard way of clicking. That is also a thing that will probably keep myself from playing the game when it comes out. I just don't feel like dealing with rude people like that, who seem to be navigating a whole different world than I am. If it means never getting ahead in an MMO and staying low-level then I'd rather do that than making my way through a dungeon with a group of rude guys for hours.

Even so, having to deal with very frustrating people, the game kept me interested enough to keep playing for hours on end. I don't really know how to write a review for an MMO since I am so obviously not accustomed to all their quirks and unwritten laws, so all I can do is give my view as an unfamiliar person. If you've never played an MMO before and you try to play any MMO you will probably get yelled at at first. Maybe if you can find a group of friends to show you the ropes you will be lucky but with so many MMOs out there and MMOs having developed into their own little niche kind of games, extremely different from the singleplayer RPGS that they once came forth from, it would always be tough to find your way into the system.

Rift at least is a new game where perhaps the minds of people aren't set into stone all that deeply and even for me it was really fun at times. I guess it would be a good choice to try out. For now, having played the game so intensely for the last three days I guess I can say I will never become an MMO player. There seems to be too much to learn just to have a little bit of fun. When the beta ends I think I will just go back to putting up with rude people in League of Legends. At least in League of Legends I can really kick ass if I'm lucky. In the end my overall impression of Rift is a highly positive one, while my impression of the players is an overwhelmingly negative one.

Halloween Recommendation: The Walking Dead

Pictures by AMC

Oh my, it's nearly Halloween already! Time really passes fast. That's why I have to get another Halloween recommendation off my chest quickly. Here they come, The Walking Dead!

The Walking Dead begins in a manner very similar to another of my genre favourites: 28 Days Later. A man, a cop actually, wakes up from a coma in a hospital and has to find out the hard way that while he was unconscious the hordes of the undead, just referred to as 'walkers', descended upon his small hometown. Now he has to make his way in this new society, trying to find his family and work together with any survivors that he might find along the way.

I am not really sure what I think about the premiere date of AMC's new series The Walking Dead. On the one hand Halloween is perfect for the premiere of a zombie TV series, on the other hand, won't the primary target audience of this series be busy being dressed up, having a party and stuff like that? (I surely am planning on being Zoey from Left 4 Dead for Halloween) Still, even if they don't catch it when it first airs then at least the VCRs will be sure to preserve it for later viewing.

AMC, what I have seen of you so far (and my experience ends with Mad Men) I have really enjoyed and you are surprisingly high quality for a relatively small cable channel. Will The Walking Dead be able to fill the sad void that has been left behind after the season finale of the latest season of Mad Men aired?

At first glance it has to be said that the genres are extremely different. Subtle drama on the one hand, bloodthirsty zombies on the other. However, a look at the moderately paced pilot of The Walking Dead could make you think again. Veterans of the zombie genre are often used to a movie spanning 90 minutes. Now the first episode of The Walking Dead is pretty much just as long, but compared to your average zombie movie the plot progresses very slowly. Which is natural and a good thing, actually. Since all in all we will get six episodes in this first season, there is no need to spill all the beans in the first one. I think the genre really benefits from having time to breathe occasionally.

From what I could see so far I think The Walking Dead might surprise us with how far it actually is from your average zombie movie. I have really high hopes for the series and I am also excited to find out how that material does outside of movies, videogames or comics. I haven't read the comic book that The Walking Dead is based on, but all around you hear that it is outstanding and thought-provoking. Maybe it will be a good replacement for Mad Men after all. And it has zombies, on top of that!

I have of course also heard claims of sexism towards the comic book, but I don't think I have seen enough to pass judgement on that just yet. All I can say is The Walking Dead is a treat that zombie enthusiasts should not miss out on this Halloween!

Cross-Overs... always a good idea?

Recently I heard that Eminem and Rihanna are apparently doing some music thing together and I started wondering about the phenomenon of "crossovers" in general. I can't say that I really know what Eminem's songs are about and I am not sure I have ever listened to a single song of Rihanna but I wondered what kind of effect a collaboration of these two would have. I repeat, I don't actually know in which relation the work of those two artists stands, I just couldn't help but wonder: Hey, wouldn't some fans of Eminem boycott the single because they don't want anything to do with Rihanna or the other way around? In the end I thought that two large fanbases would be combined by a collaboration and even if a portion of those fans boycotts the product, then there is still the combined fanbase which ensures more profit in the end.

I guess crossovers or collaborations are always profitable for every party in the deal, but are they always good?

My initial reaction to the crossover of Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright and Professor Layton was: Hell to the no, this has to be a joke, what the fuck were they thinking?! I mean, those two don't really fit together at all. Fine, the genre is sort of similar. In Professor Layton you solve a case by solving puzzles and in Ace Attorney you sort of solve a case by finding clues that help you defending your client. Yet, one of the big things that attracted me about Professor Layton was the very distinct setting somewhere in the early 20th century, strongly influenced by French music, some almost steampunky elements and a general old European feel. Ace Attorney on the other hand isn't even set in a similar timeframe, it doesn't sport the same drawing style or colour palette. It's set in present day and drawn in your typical Anime drawing style, while Professor Layton, at first glance, seemed very much like having come from the pen of a francophone comic artist. They are just so different! The trailer also didn't reassure me, I thought the different styles clashed wildly. I bet that there is going to be a plausible explanation as to why both protagonists and their sidekicks find themselves in the same world but I am not so sure I might buy it.

What about crossovers like Marvel vs. Capcom? Sure, I can easily imagine characters like that beating each other up, no matter where they came from. It has been a little treat of fighting games to have unexpected hidden characters that don't really fit into the universe of the game but are nevertheless available to choose as your avatar for a long time now. Thus, it's not really unusual to have two worlds of superheroes or fighters clash with each other at all. However, to put Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright against each other makes them clash in a way that not everybody might find to their taste.

I just don't know. Marvel vs. Capcom, sure! That's a fitting cross-over game. Eminem and Rihnanna making a song together? Why not, people will buy it for sure. But Professor Layton and Ace Attorney, I am not so sure about that. I just think it clashes too much and in a way that I don't find aesthetically pleasing. If the story will prove to be good enough to captivate people who were thrown off my the cross-over at first remains to be seen. Either way, so far I can see that fans of both the games are happy about the announcement. So in the end both parties will at least have a financial gain from this crossover.

Plus, you have to get a Nintendo 3DS for it? Is that why you combined your mighty powers of successful franchises, to boost the sales for your new console, Nintendo? Hmmm? Well, experience shows that Nintendo's console sales hardly ever need boosts and I expect the same will apply for the Nintendo 3DS. I, however, am still sticking to my old trusty Nintendo DS Lite. I have never even touched one of these Nintendo DSis and they are already bringing out the next console. Always one step ahead, Nintendo, eh?

P.S.: Layton kicks Wright's butt!

Winter is coming... to HBO in 2011! (Game of Thrones preview)

As the year is rapidly drawing to a close (I bet you, next time you look around it will be christmas!), I thought it would be high time to take a look at what exciting things await us in the year of 2011. There is a bunch of new stuff coming out, as well as old beloved series getting a renewal but we will go at it one preview at a time. This one here is about HBO's brand new epic fantasy series A Game of Thrones.



If you are into fantasy literature and have been so inclined for a certain time already it would be a surprise if you weren't familiar with George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire or had at least heard a mention of it at some point while getting recommendations for what to read next. A Song of Ice and Fire is hard to sum up in a few sentences but it starts out as tale set in a world where magic is but a forgotten whisper, where monsters and undead are only the subject of old wives' tales and all dragons have long been slain. The old Targaryen king has been slain by his own guard, his heirs driven away beyond the sea into a strange exotic land. And in the North, beyond the 7000 feet tall wall of ice, unknown things start to stir. Ser Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell receives notice that his friend the king (who some might call usurper) is intending to make him his new advisor after their old mutual friend died under dubious circumstances. Thus the noble Ser Eddard Stark travels south to where his old friend reigns and tries to shine a ray of light into the thick swamp of schemes he finds there.

I started reading A Song of Ice and Fire some time in high school, after I had gotten two recommendations for the same series by two people from different countries. I thought: Hey, maybe there is something to it! And they were right, A Song of Ice and Fire will suck you in pretty quickly, provided you don't have a problem juggling with the names of its many major and minor characters. Rest assured, if you run into difficulties remembering everyone at first, it's nearly impossible to get everything on your first read through. At least one re-read should be recommended, you will suddenly notice so much more stuff that at first didn't make sense.

However, this article is not about the book series. I wouldn't even go as far as saying that A Song of Ice and Fire is the best fantasy book series there is, but it is definitely high up there because I am a picky person when it comes to fantasy. Still, it was apparently good enough to finally pique the interest of HBO and thus, this article is about the adaption that will premiere at HBO in 2011.

I have followed the production of this series from its very beginning, from the time on when there were rumours about the script, when the script was leaked, when the pilot got its greenlight, when the first casting choices were made, when the pilot was shot, when the series got the greenlight from HBO and until now, while they are shooting and new news about minor characters being cast surface quite often. Most of you will probably know what it is like to follow news from the adaption of one of your favourite books. If there is a popular source material loyal fans will be very picky.

But I have to say that everything I have looked at so far (especially the leaked script... if that was real) just looks amazing! You know fans don't say that easily, they always have something to nitpick. But I am truly happy with a lot of the casting choices. I think Sean Bean will make a great Ser Eddard Stark, I am confident Lena Heady as Queen Cersei will be appropriately icy. I am really excited to see Peter Dinklage's (the first casting choice that surfaced, btw) performance as Tyrion Lannister and personally I don't think they could have picked a better Jon Snow than Kit Harington. He looks exactly, one hundred percent like I always imagined Jon. And hopefully this will be an opportunity for Rory McCann to shine and show himself to an international audience beyond saying 'yarp'. I could continue like this for pretty much all of the cast. The only casting choice I ever felt "meh" about was when Tamzin Merchant was cast as Daenerys Targaryen. However, as if to answer to my every wish, her role was recast after the pilot and the scenes were reshot with Emilia Clarke. I am ridiculously happy with this cast. A few big names and familiar faces, along with a lot of fresh new faces that can surprise us all! Seriously, in the department of casting I don't have a single thing that irks me.

Now, of course I will have to watch the first episode at least before judging this series but so far this is a complete thumbs-up from me. We haven't gotten a whole lot of official promotional material yet. Some atmospheric picture of a winter forest, probably taken from the prologue scene from the pilot, which takes place beyond the wall. Some pictures of little Maisie Williams posing with her tiny sword Needle, looking just as if Arya had stepped right out of the page. The highlights are two rather tiny teaser trailers and one little featurette about the series. You can watch them over here: http://winter-is-coming.net/media/videos/ (Incidentally, the Winter is Coming blog has been my primary source of information about this adaption from the very beginning and they are the best). Everything you can see so far looks very polished and high budget. This is what we fans expect from HBO after all.

So, my verdict for this TV series long before the pilot will air is as follows. You all probably know that sometimes when you closely follow news about an adaption of your favourite book or graphic novel that at some point you can sort of tell they are screwing it up. They are changing things that shouldn't be changed or they cut entire characters that are important later on. With Game of Thrones, so far there has been no such nonsense. Nothing! Everything I have seen so far makes it look so very promising. My expectations for this series are really high. This could be something special, something really big that even people who aren't into fantasy will take note of. I really hope HBO will deliver when it does come out but so far, everything really looks spot on and you can take that from a very picky person. And you don't know how long I have waited to see the words "Winter is coming to HBO in 2011"!

Terry Pratchett's Going Postal DVD preview

I am very much looking forward to November 15^th because that is when the DVD of Going Postal is going to be released over here in Germany!

Going Postal was a movie that I had been looking forward to immensely. I just recently started reading Discworld novels but I got into them fast. I know, everybody will at least know one person who has recommended the Discworld novels to them at some point and most people will react to it with a "well I am not so sure I want to believe that hype" attitude, just as I did. But for some reason I did pick up one of the books in the end (so my first Discworld novel was Reaper Man and I hadn‘t experienced being so captivated by a book ever since I had read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows back to back on the day it came out) and I was hooked.

Soon after I started reading the series I researched it a little bit on the internet and found out that the book that I was just reading then, Going Postal, was going to be turned into a movie! I had already watched Hogfather by The Mod and was assured that their work was pretty nice, so I was looking forward to that movie quite a lot.

I have to say, the movie did its best to satisfy my insanely high expectations of it! Sure, as with any adaption some things will be changed and some things left out entirely. But the overall feel and style of the adaption was still delightful and very entertaining.

Going Postal is about a conman, Moist von Lipwig, who gets one last chance from Ankh-Morpork‘s Patriarch Lord Vetinari to redeem himself by getting the post office back in business, much to the dismay of Reacher Gilt, the owner of the so-called Clacks-system, a Discworld-version of the telegraph or an early version of the internet. Moist von Lipwig has to deliver the accumulated mail of years and years, evade assassination attempts and team up with Adora Belle Dearheart, head of the Golem Trust, to bring back justice and good communication service to the town of Ankh-Morpork.

I don‘t know what it is, but something about these "how the ___ of Ankh-Morpork came to be" stories appeal to me very much. Going Postal was the first story like that which I read. Then there is also Making Money, which is about Moist fixing Ankh-Morpork‘s bank system and also The Truth which details the beginning of the daily paper, the Ankh-Morpork Times. All of those stories are just fun to read and I do love the occasional comment on our own very real world that you will find within them.

But back to the film at hand, the adaption of Going Postal! Period-wise it is set somewhere in a Discworld-pendant of the 1880s (Pterry himself has stated in featurettes that his inspiration for the book was the old Victorian mail system), so the costumes are really pretty and the colour theme of the entire movie is beautiful to behold. Brownish, muddy tones, shiny gold (who could forget Moist‘s golden suit?) and darker shades of green, blue and purple dominate the movie and give it a very nice and coherent atmosphere.

The characters for the most part are pretty good. I especially liked Moist‘s portrayal. You can never get it exactly like in the book but I think Richard Coyle as Moist was appropriately charismatic and shiny. Another performance that I really liked was Charles Dance as Lord Vetinari. Even though Lord Vetinari is a dark character and people were concerned about blonde Charles Dance playing him, I think he did great. To me, he is Lord Vetinari now. At least much more than Jeremy Irons managed to bring across His Lordship in the adaption of Colour of Magic. David Suchet as Reacher Gilt makes a scathing villain and we are immediately sympathetic towards Madhav Sharma as his loyal and/but good natured accountant Crispin Horsefry. Andrew Sachs makes a funny old Junior Postman Groat and I must admit that Ian Bonar is an absolute personal favourite of mine in this movie. I already loved his character, the confused, geeky and sweet Stanley, in the book and, if I may say so, they cast the cutest guy humanly possible for that part! I love watching his facial expression every time he is on screen. He has the funniest demeanours. One of my favourite scenes in the entire movie is when Stanley sits there in the middle of the night and is slowly and delicately tearing apart two sheets of stamps, all the while his face changing from relaxed to strained to pleasure and finally to happiness. I wonder what the directional comment for that was. "Tear apart these sheets of stamps and make an orgasmic face“? I swear this scene cracks me up every time!

Now naturally there are also some things that I don‘t agree with so much in this adaption but they are all not too bad. For example, the golems were not like I imagined them. Didn‘t it say "Gingerbread Man faces"? But I could still get used to the portrayal of the golems in the movie and it didn‘t impede my enjoyment of the movie at all.

My biggest complaint about the movie is though, that they changed quite a lot about Adora Belle Dearheart. Her appeareance is spot-on, there is nothing to complain about there and I think Claire Foy does a good job of playing her as well. It‘s the way her character was changed slightly, I can‘t even really put my finger on it because it has been a little while since I have read the book but Adora was always an awesome and badass character in the book. In the adaption she sometimes comes across as a little bit whiny or overly offended. She gets a bit annoying at times, even though I was never annoyed at her behaviour in the book. The worst thing however was, that they changed her smoking habit. In the movie she starts smoking out of desperation because her family lost the Clacks system due to the collapse of the bank that had given them a credit. And when the happy end finally comes she gives up smoking! This is so not how she was in the book. Smoking is a point of Adora Belle‘s character. Not because it makes her "cool" but because she just was a smoker. That was one of her traits and I feel like the way they treated it in the movie felt a bit too "correct". You shouldn‘t sacrifice important traits of characters for the sake of being "correct".

Finally I can just say that my complaints about this movie weigh much lighter than the general enjoyment that I had while watching it. It‘s not the best movie in the world but it managed to pretty much keep up to my really high expectations for it and that‘s quite a feat! Yes, the book is better, much more intricate and are you surprised at that? The book is always better but I can acknowledge this adaption as a pretty good movie on its own!

A look at amazon.co.uk tells me that I can look forward to audio commentary, deleted scenes, a blooper reel and much more for the special edition DVD release. And I really hope to get that here in Germany, too. It would be so unfair to not get all the good stuff when you are going the extra mile and buy the special edition DVD!